Roland Stephen Lacey was born in 1888 in Western Cove, White Bay. When he heard of war in Europe, and that England was involved, his patriotic heart sent him to enlist on September 4, 1914—one month after the declaration of World War I. His enrolment number was 77, putting him in the first 100.
His attestation paper shows he had served five years previously in the Royal Naval Reserve (Newfoundland’s equivalent of Britain’s Royal Navy). He was 151 pounds and stood five foot ten.
Roland Lacey left for the United Kingdom on the SS Florizel. He was part of the Mediterranean Expeditionary Force by August 1915—in the famous (or infamous) Gallipoli slaughter. He survived that prolonged battle.
After promotion to lance corporal, he served in France from March to July 1916. He was wounded in the foot in the July 1 battle of Beaumont Hamel, found medically unfit after convalescence, and was honourably discharged from the military in November 1917.
Roland had now lived through two vicious campaigns of WWI.
His worst test of survival was yet to come.
After discharge from the Regiment, Roland Lacey looked for work and found it on the St. John’s waterfront. Campbell and McKay’s merchant house was looking for sailors for the Watanga (often misspelled as Witauga). The 100-foot-long schooner was slated to carry fish to Europe.
When he joined the ship as cook and sailed in early 1918, his shipmates were Captain Richard J. Owen and Eli Hancock, the latter a discharged Royal Naval Reservist; both lived in St. John’s. Rounding out the crew were Edward Fewer of Rushoon, Andrew O’Driscoll, Tors Cove, and John Brest of Lunenburg, Nova Scotia.
With fish discharged, the Watanga took on a load of salt at Spain and on March 20 headed west for Newfoundland. They all knew the danger of submarine warfare on the Atlantic. Enemy subs were stopping and sinking Allied merchant ships. Sure enough, seven days out and 450 miles west of Lisbon, a sub, U-135, surfaced.
It shelled and sank the Watanga. All six crew scrambled into a lifeboat. The German commander gave them the course for nearest land, 450 miles away.
For eight days, the Watanga’s castaways sailed and rowed, but reached land (according to Daily Star April 15, 1918). However, they were so weak, hungry, and drained that when the lifeboat upset near the beach, they were too exhausted to save themselves.
The only survivor was Roland Lacey, perhaps from some unknown quirk of fate, perhaps he was in a little better shape than his fellow sailors. Who knows? At any rate, he was the sole survivor.
His name next appears in the pamphlet Colonial Commerce, Volume 27 of 1917–1918. The writer was Captain John Lewis of Holyrood, Conception Bay, who was engaged in government services in Spain and Gibraltar in 1918. In Lewis’s written entry in that pamphlet for April 13, 1918, it says:
Roland Lacey, cook of the ill-fated schooner “Watauga” (sic) arrived here yesterday from Lisbon. He is the only survivor of this crew. He went aboard the ship this evening bound for Newfoundland. Writer [Lewis] gave him £1 as he was destitute.
In time, Lacey came back to his now-adopted home, St. John’s, again a survivor. Not long after, he married Louise Corcoran of St. John’s.
He found work as a motorman on the cable cars in downtown St. John’s. He had been working there for nine years when, on December 9, 1930, his heroism and innate desire to serve his fellow man rose to the forefront once more.
He was on his streetcar near Beck’s Cove on Water Street when some electric wires fell down across the track. Motorman Roland Lacey had stopped his car to let off passengers and saw the broken wires on or near his car.
He attempted to move them to prevent the wire from being a menace to pedestrians. The transmission line sent 2,200 volts through his body, causing him to be thrown backwards to the side of the street.
He pulled himself to his feet. Two policemen saw what happened and offered to help him. “I’m okay,” he said. He walked a few steps and collapsed. He was pronounced dead at the scene.
Roland Stephen Lacey, a war and shipwreck hero and survivor, was forty-three years old. His wife, Louisa, was pregnant, and they had six children, the eldest, eight. Today his courageous story lives on via his great- and great-great-grandchildren scattered across Canada and the United States.
The greatest award a serviceman could achieve during World War I was the Victoria Cross. Two Newfoundland soldiers were awarded the VC: John Bernard Croke, born in Little Bay in Green Bay (who lived in Nova Scotia), was the first, followed by Thomas Ricketts of Middle Arm, White Bay. Croke fought and died in Amiens, France. Ricketts fought at Flanders and returned home.
The next-highest prestigious award for valour in war is the Distinguished Service Medal. Leander Green of St. Jones Without was the first recipient of any decoration, including a VC, given to a Newfoundlander of either the Royal Naval Reserves or the Royal Newfoundland Regiment. Green, a Naval Reserve, was presented with the DSM for a sea battle fought on New Year’s Night of January 1, 1915.
Generally kept quiet because bad news, i.e., the sinking of a ship, was considered defeatist propaganda, Britain’s sea battles with its accompanying individual heroism are generally not as well known or documented as the land battles fought in France and Belgium during World War I.
So it was with Leander Green. So confidential was the battle and loss of life that Green fought in that he was reluctant to talk about it. He said so in a letter to his sister in August 1915 (saying he was presented the DSM by the King of England but was sorry he could not say what the medal was for). In later life, Leander Green rarely told his story in public.
However, his life came to an end all too soon. From his residence in Sunnyside, Leander and his family were en route to or from some function on August 30, 1966. The car they were in was involved in a horrific accident. Killed in the crash were Leander, his son, Pierce Green, aged thirty-seven, and Pierce’s two young daughters, Susan and Debbie. Leander Green, hero of the RNR in a disastrous sea battle and Newfoundland’s first decorated serviceman, was seventy-six.